My Young Friends (AKA the Children of My Friends)- Part 2

It was an uneventful train and cab ride to find Ezra and Cailin’s house. Read carefully for this connection. Cailin’s mother, Mary Burke is a very dear friend of my neighbor on the Esplanade, Maureen Donovan. Although I do get to see the Burkes often enough during the summer, I hadn’t seen Cailin in a few years. Actually, the last time I saw Cailin she was propped up on a beach chair having had surgery on her knee a few days earlier and not feeling her best.
So here we meet again in Be’er Sheva, the “capital” of the Negev and home to Ben Gurion University and the Medical School for International Health, where Cailin and Ezra are respectively enrolled.

Be’er Sheva is now the 4th largest city in Israel. The University of the Negev, established in the 1960’s, was re-named Ben Gurion University after the death of the former prime minister. Soroka Medical Center (no relation to my college friend, Karen Sroka!) Center serves as Ben-Gurion University’s affiliate teaching hospital.

Soroka is Israel’s second largest medical center, serving a region that constitutes 60% of the country’s landmass. By virtue of the diverse populations of the Negev: veteran Israelis, new immigrants from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia, as well as Israel’s Bedouin population, the facility handles a vast array of medical situations.

The Medical Center treats the entire population of southern Israel - close to one million people, 35% of who are new immigrants. It is the regional trauma center for the southern half of the country - and the largest in all of Israel treating victims of terrorism and also serves the large contingent of Israeli soldiers stationed in the Negev.
With more than 1,000 beds, Soroka has the highest occupancy rates in the country, reaching more than 170%. (This means that patients are often in the hallways until beds in rooms become available.) It is also one of the busiest maternity wards in the western world, delivering over 13,000 babies a year, and maintains Israel’s lowest rate of infant mortality.

Hospital doctors and mobile units often travel hundreds of miles to remote kibbutz clinics, development towns and Bedouin tents, offering on-site medical care. As part of their community out-reach, Soroka runs programs to educate the Negev’s diverse and scattered population in preventive care and public health. Because of the large area it serves, Soroka has developed strategies of care and outreach that are unique to Israel.

Ezra and I talked health care; I shared what I learned on the nurses’ mission and what I know of the health issues of school age children. I was interested in learning more about a mobile eye van initiative for the Ethiopian immigrants and Ezra was willing to check it out.

Being an intrepid traveler, I decided on a daytrip (via bus) to Miztpe Ramon, a town in the Negev about 80 miles south. It is situated on the northern ridge of a crater at an elevation of 2,400 feet, overlooking an enormous erosion cirque known as the Ramon Crater. This crater, or makhtesh, as it is called in Hebrew (a term also used by geologists around the world) is 28 miles long and five miles wide. By definition, a makhtesh is an erosion valley walled with steep cliffs on all sides and drained by a single watercourse. It is a spectacular natural site.


Mitzpe Ramon was originally founded in 1951 as a camp for the workers building the road to Eilat. The town's first permanent residents, immigrants from North Africa and Romania, settled there in the 1960s. It has the feel of a very planned community. Population is 5500 people, which includes a recent addition of Russian immigrants. Its raison d’etre is the giant crater - pure natural beauty and serenity. The visitor center, built at the very edge of the makhtesh (crater), is designed in the shape of an ammonite fossil. The ammonite was a spiral-shaped sea creature that lived here when everything was under water millions of years ago. A sculpture garden sits on its rim. It’s a geologist’s dream.



The view from the visitors’ center is breathtaking – a vista that was formed millions of years ago. The crater’s walls are made from layers of different–color rock beds containing the fossils of shells, plants and trees. The floor of the makhtesh is covered with heaps of black basalt, the peaks of ancient volcanoes, jagged chunks of quartzite, huge blocks of overturned rock and beds of multicolor clays.



And the perimeter of the crater was the extent of my travels! The “not so helpful” women at the visitor center spoke English but the only word she kept repeating was “no”. That was to my query about the hiking trails. The long and short of it was that without a car, I was limited to the perimeter and the sculpture garden.

The “perimeter” view is breathtaking – a vista that was formed millions of years ago. The crater’s walls are made from layers of different–color rock beds containing the fossils of shells, plants and trees. The floor of the makhtesh is covered with heaps of black basalt, the peaks of ancient volcanoes, jagged chunks of quartzite, huge blocks of overturned rock and beds of multicolor clays. It’s a geologist’s dream.






I walked down the street past the gas station, and was the only person in the sculpture garden, except for the ibex!



Dinners at the Miller/Burke home fell in the category of simple suppers. Ezra is a great cook! Over dinner (the chopped salad is competition for my own) we planned my “experience” as a medical student! Ezra made an appointment for us to meet with the doctor who oversees the mobile van program.

The following day, Ezra and I went off to medical school. Our first stop was a meeting with Dr Danny Goldfarb who oversees the community programs. We learned about the scope of practices and that the mobile eye program was initially created to care for the influx of Ethiopians. By the time the funding was secured, the Ethiopians were no longer in need and the mobile programs began providing care to the Bedouins. I felt very connected to Dr Goldfarb when I noticed the monkeys in his office!



A neuro-psych lecture and a medical ethics “debate” rounded out my day in medical school. The highlight was one of Ezra’s colleagues inquiring if I was his sister!

Finding a good restaurant in Be’er Sheva is a challenge. We did enjoy ourselves, and I left them with an IOU for an overnight at the Pooc.


In order to fully appreciate what Be’er Sheva has to offer, a car is highly advantageous. While at the army base at Matzrap, we did go on a half-day “cultural tour” around the city.

One of the stops was Moshav Nevatim: home to Cochin Jews from India, who came to Israel after the establishment of the state. The Cochin Jews consider themselves one of the most ancient Jewish communities in the world. The Center for Cochin Heritage tells the story of this unique community.


Although the Jewish community of southern India was once influential, its numbers had dwindled to less than 3,000 members when many decided to immigrate to Israel in the 1950s. Nevatim is home to some 600 Jews who trace their roots back to India, The former merchants of Cochin turned to agriculture, successfully developing a thriving business of hothouse flowers, which are grown in the moshav and exported to Europe.


On display today at the Cochin Jewish Heritage Center are colorful and richly embroidered clothes as well as embellished gold and silver ritual objects. Proudly displayed in the museum is the beautiful clothing worn by the brides and grooms of the community. Their daily life is illustrated with cooking utensils and household equipment.



When the museum was under construction in the early 1970s, a letter was received from the few remaining Jews in Cochin who were worried about the future of their historic local synagogue.

In response, the community in Israel organized the careful dismantling of the synagogue's interior, its shipping from Cochin and its reconstruction at Nevatim.




The synagogue is now part of the museum tour. Inside its ornate interior is a traditional ark and a bima, or reader's table, which dates from the 16th century.


We also visited the Joe Alon Bedouin Center, located on a high spot at the heart of the Lahav forest, (just north of the city) which highlights the Bedouin culture and history. The Bedouin tribes scattered throughout the Negev have undergone a rapid process of transition from nomadic to modern life. Many of the characteristics of the Bedouin lifestyle are therefore disappearing, creating the urgent need to document this ancient way of life. As there are at most of the museum’s in Israel, there is an interactive, multi-media presentation of the Jewish settlement in the Negev, from the early days of the State of Israel up to present times We experienced Bedouin style hospitality in the Sheik's tent, sipping some sweet desert herbal tea as well as the bitter black coffee.



The museum includes a wing on settlement of the Negev desert, a wing on cave culture, and a wing on Bedouin culture. It was established by the Joe Alon Association, commemorating Joe Alon - an Israeli pilot, murdered while on a diplomatic assignment in the United States, the case has not been solved to this very day.

Here’s a link to the story of Joe Alon: (http://www.joealon.org.il/english/eng_joe.html)
We toured a conservative synagogue that is one of about 40 in the country. It is a diverse congregation of about 150 families.

The president of the congregation told us that the main source of income for the congregation is tuition from their six pre-school classes. The rabbi left a year ago and has not been replaced; the responsibility for services is jointly shared by congregation members. Rabbi Wayne (our Baptist Texan) donned a kippah and offered his services. It appears to be a vibrant congregation, as the teens were getting ready for Purim.



Last stop was a workshop that was assisting Ethiopian women in marketing their embroidered items: mezuzahs, tablecloths, challah and matzo covers and other small items. We supported them until our shekels were gone!


So, Be’er Sheva is certainly a cultural hub, but as Cailin and Ezra have said, if you’re not studying at the university, AND without wheels, there is not much to do!

As the sun rises, we find our heroine heading south in the Negev to the Red Sea - and the adventure continues...